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Thursday, 26 December 2024
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Athens News Agency: News in English, 08-08-24Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>CONTENTS
[01] PM to hold meetings ahead of TIF addressPrime Minister Costas Karamanlis will have a series of meetings this coming week, beginning on Monday, with representatives of production sectors, employers' groups, chamber leaderships and union leaders, as well as with meetings with top ministers, all ahead of early next month's keynote address at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF).The latter trade exhibition, the coutry's largest, traditionally serves at the venue where Greek prime ministers unveil their government's economic priorities and strategy for the upcoming year. The prime minister's address is followed a week later by the main opposition leader. Caption: ANA-MPA file photo of Greek PM Costas Karamanlis. [02] FM on FYROM PM's commentsGreek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis on Sunday called the latest eyebrow-raising comments over the weekend by the premier of the neighbouring Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) regarding the thorny "name issue" as utterly provocative and intransigent.Moreover, in response to press questions and only days after a UN special mediator visited both Skopje and Athens, Bakoyannis emphasised that FYROM Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski had proceeded with "actions and statements aimed to undermine the (name issue) negotiations ⦠even ahead of his recent most recent meeting with (UN mediator) Mr. (Matthew) Nimetz." "The intransigent and provocative statements by Mr. Gruevski are beyond any moderation. They simply confirm the difficult position in which he himself has chosen ⦠Mr. Gruevski is committing a serious error. Responsibility for whatever involvement in the negotiations, and by extension, his country's European and Euro-Atlantic course, is exclusively his responsibility," Bakoyannis said in response to press questions dealing with the latest developments in the still unresolved "name issue" between Athens and Skopje. Gruevski comments Bakoyannis sharply reacted to statements a day earlier by the recently re-elected Gruevski, who among others opined that Athens' latest insistence over the 17-year-old "name issue" stems from that the fact a "major scandal erupts in Greece every two weeks", while the head of government of the small landlocked country to Greece's north initially expressed a view that "Greece has deep and major problems". In an ANA-MPA dispatch from Skopje, Gruevski attempted to counter last week's high-profile statement in Skopje by Nimetz, saying his government considers a new name for the one-time Yugoslav republic for all international uses as "unacceptable", merely adding that the object is a name that EU member-state Greece will use in bilateral relations. Caption: File photo of Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis. ANA-MPA [03] KKE head criticises OlympicsCommunist Party of Greece (KKE) Secretary General Aleka Papariga, attending an event in the Piraeus-area municipality of Nikaia on Sunday to commemorate the 1944 Kokinnia blockade and massacre during the Nazi occupation of Greece, predicted a worsening of working people's living standards in the coming months, while separately, she sternly lashed out at the the modern Olympic Games.Focusing on the issue of doping and the Olympic, Papariga said that "the question is that the role and whatever value the Olympic Games had is over," adding that "we must disengage ourselves from this institution." She further said that top performances in search of medals are "being encouraged by banks, industries." [04] Migrant arrests in E. AegeanA total of 110 illegal immigrants were intercepted and arrested throughout the weekend in nearly a half dozen instances in eastern Aegean waters and on islands in the region, including 21 would-be migrants attempting to approach the island of Samos on Sunday, one of the favorite "targets" of foreign nationals attempting to illegally land on Greek islands via Turkey.Two alleged migrant smugglers were also arrested. All of the detained individuals were identified as Third World nationals, while authorities said the groups of would-be migrants had disembarked from the opposite Turkish coast by paying migrant smugglers a fee. Finally, port authorities in the city of Patras, western Greece, arrested a 24-year-old foreign driver on Saturday afternoon, as well as four other foreign nationals riding with him on charges of possessing forged travel documents with the intent of leaving the country illegally. [05] Summer visits for expatriatesSummer camp programmes organised by foreign ministry's overseas Hellenism department for expatriate Greek children from all over the world have concluded for 2008, the ministry announced on Sunday.About 700 children of Greek origin from 61 countries and aged between 8-12 stayed at the foreign ministry's summer camps in the towns of Malesina, central Greece, and Epanomi, in the prefecture of Thessaloniki. Children attending the programmes took in Greek language lessons, visits to archaeological sites, history and mythology lessons and various recreational activities. Deputy Foreign Minister Theodoros Kassimis attended the farewell event at one of the summer camps, where he stressed that "it is moving to see Greek children from every corner of the earth coming and spending three weeks full of Greece. They learn Greek, they stage an ancient tragedy, and learn traditional dances and songs." Caption: ANA-MPA file photo of a summer camp in the Thrace province. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |
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